Santa Fe and Suwannee Rivers - Veterans Day Weekend

Cast of Characters

Stan

 Bill

The other Bill

Jeff

Toby

And me, but there are no pictures.

We were six Kruger paddlers off for an adventure on a Fall weekend in North Florida, and the rivers did not disappoint.  In spite of very, very low water all over the northern third of Florida, the spring-fed Santa Fe had enough water to float our canoes.

We put in at the highway 27 bridge near High Springs.  This is several miles downstream of where the Santa Fe emerges above ground after passing through a limestone ridge.  The Canoe Outpost ran our shuttle and gave a lot of good advice about camping, river levels, etc.

We put in around 11 AM and paddled about 12.5 miles to find a camping spot.  The river was clear with a tea colored tint, and we passed a spring around almost every corner on the upper section.  It was a cool day, so the famous "Naked Ed" at Lily Springs was dressed and sitting beside a fire.

Toby turning around in Lily Springs

We expected to see a lot of traffic on this three day weekend with no rain in the forecast, but the cold must have frightened most folks off.  There were a lot of college-aged folks at Giny Springs, but all of the other commercial and state-owned springs were deserted.  We had lunch at Rum Springs:

We had a camping permit for the conservation areas, and found a place to camp away from houses and people.  That night we huddled around our campfire and turned in early.  In the morning, Toby's thermometer read 28 degrees.  But the cold brought a beautiful mist to the river:

Afterwards, it warmed up nicely to around 70.  We passed the entrance to the Ichetucknee, but it was too shallow to paddle up.  We came to the junction of the Suwannee mid afternoon.  We had planned to camp on the beach on Suwannee River right, but the land was posted.  We gained permission to camp on private land on a point between the two rivers (please respect posted land and get permission before paddling into posted springs and river banks!).

Along the way we saw many birds, and every log seemed to have turtles sunning themselves.  We saw  herons, egrets, bald eagles, curlews, ibis, and many, many vultures.  There were no alligators, but several of us did see a big manatee on the Suwannee.

A tree full of black and turkey vultures.  There were many of these.

Toby checks out the ibis

Bill checks his chart at the junction with the Suwannee.

Toby relaxing and waiting for the shuttle.

Interesting signs:

I'll add our Google maps GPS track later